5. Fantasy - The Hobbit

I had heard of The Hobbit before I started reading this book, but I never saw the movie or read the book. I do know everything about The Lord of the Rings, so the hobbit definitely got my attention. I did already know that the book is going to be spread into 3 films, which also made me curious. People warned me before I started reading the book, that the writing style is pretty difficult and hard to understand. While reading it I was surprised I actually liked the writing style of J.K.K. Tolkien. I had difficulties with reading but I did understand it, and I thought his writing style is quite artistic.

What I absolutely loved about this book is that the main character Bilbo isn’t perfect. If a main character makes mistakes or shows that he is scared etc., then you can more easily identify with him/her. Bilbo is a character like that. I liked to read how Bilbo grows as a person while getting on in the book. What I didn’t like about the book was that there were some things which didn’t make it realistic. Ofcourse it is a fantasy world, but like the dragon, he could talk. I didn’t like that at all. It makes it harder to imagine. I really like fantasy worlds, especially when it is written as it could really be true. A dragon who can talk with humans is not real.

In class we discussed how fantasy books like this one are written. The lesson was mostly about how the writers learned to make their fantasy story appealing to readers. They try to make their characters very humanlike, so it is easy to relate to a character. The reader is in this way introduced in a new world (fantasy), but the characters are just like the reader, which makes it a lot of fun to read.

I think the Hobbit would be suitable for 14 to 16 year olds (and older). I think because the writing style is a bit hard to read my students wouldn’t be able to understand the story when they are younger than 14. At this age you can understand what is going on in the book and you can definitely like it. Children younger than 14 might also find it a scary book.

On the internet I found some interesting things about the book. I found on a blog post that Tolkien wrote two versions of The Hobbit. This kind of surprised me and makes me wonder how the other one is like. The internet also said that the theme of the book is mostly about growing as a person and how to deal with conflicts. I liked to read about that, because this was exactly what we also discussed in class.

I would recommend this book to my students, but only when they ask me to be able to read is. It has a difficult writing style, which makes students unmotivated about reading English I am afraid. When students would ask me if they can read it I would encourage them to, because they will learn a lot from the book.